Your Tuesday Briefing: Italy’s turn to the right

By Jonathan Wolfe

Good morning. We’re covering Italy’s election and an attack on a Russian draft office.

Italy’s election goes hard right

Italy turned to a new page in European history by electing a hard-right coalition led by Giorgia Meloni, whose long record of bashing the European Union, international bankers and migrants has sown concern about the nation’s reliability in the Western alliance.

Meloni’s party, the Brothers of Italy, descended from the remnants of fascism. With 26 percent of the vote, the highest of any single party, the results made it almost certain that she would become Italy’s first female prime minister.

Despite reassurances from Meloni — who would be the first far-right nationalist to govern Italy since Mussolini — that she has moderated her views, it is hard for European leaders to escape a degree of dread. Despite the E.U.’s success with a pandemic recovery fund and with confronting Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, the appeal of nationalists and populists — potential threats to European ideals and cohesion — is spreading.

Ukraine: While Meloni is a strong supporter of Ukraine, her coalition partners deeply admire Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and have criticized sanctions against Russia. Italian popular opinion is traditionally sympathetic toward Moscow, and with all of the war’s domestic economic costs, Meloni may take a less firm view than the previous prime minister as it continues.

Context: Meloni’s victory, in a low-turnout election, comes as formerly taboo and marginalized parties with Nazi or fascist heritages are entering the mainstream — and winning elections — across Europe.

What’s next: The Italian establishment is confident that a system built with numerous checks to stop another Mussolini — even at the cost of paralysis — will constrain Meloni. It’s more worried about her party’s lack of competence.

Gunman attacks a Russian draft office

A gunman who was apparently distraught over Russia’s chaotic military mobilization opened fire at a draft office in Siberia on Monday, seriously wounding a recruitment officer.

The shooting, in the town of Ust-Ilimsk, was the latest attack on a military recruitment center in Russia since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Large numbers of civilians — especially ethnic minorities and people in far-flung parts of Russia and its territories — are being swept up in the Kremlin’s conscription drive, even as serious questions persist over Moscow’s ability to adequately train and equip the recruits.

As opposition to the mobilization grows, and amid rumors that the authorities could close the borders to keep draftees from leaving, an estimated 261,000 men fled Russia between Wednesday and Saturday.

Details: The authorities arrested the suspect, Ruslan Zinin. His mother told a local news outlet that her son’s close friend had received a draft summons despite having never served in the army. Russia’s defense minister pledged last week that only men with military experience and a specialization would be called for service.

Context: There have been numerous reports of people who are unfit for service being summoned to report for duty, prompting criticism of the mobilization process. A Kremlin spokesman acknowledged on Monday that there had been irregularities in the call-up, but sought to shift blame to local authorities implementing the mobilization.

China’s electric car market soars

China’s domestic electric car market is accelerating ahead of the global competition. This year, about a quarter of all new cars purchased in the country will be an all-electric vehicle or a plug-in hybrid. More electric cars will be sold in China than in the rest of the world combined.

By some estimates, more than 300 Chinese companies are making E.V.s, including offerings below $5,000 and high-end models that rival Tesla and German automakers. There are roughly four million charging units in the country, double the number from a year ago. Half of the world’s top-10 E.V. brands are Chinese.

And while other E.V. markets are still heavily dependent on subsidies, China has entered a new phase: Consumers are weighing the merits of electric vehicles based on features and price without much consideration of state support.

Background: China’s leader, Xi Jinping, declared in 2014 that development of electric vehicles was the only way that his country could transform into “an automobile power.” The country’s electric vehicle market now stands on its own because of more than a decade of subsidies, long-term investments and infrastructure spending.

Context: The demand for electric cars is a bright spot in a sluggish Chinese economy, which is coping with a property market in crisis and crippling Covid-19 policies.

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THE LATEST NEWS

• At least five rescue workers were killed in the Philippines after a powerful typhoon caused flash floods, the BBC reports.
• Kamala Harris is visiting Asia for a memorial honoring Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. While there, she’ll meet controversy at every turn, The Associated Press reports.
• The U.N. Human Rights Committee found that Australia’s inaction on climate change violated the human rights of a group of Torres Straight Islander people, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

• The British pound briefly fell to its weakest level against the U.S. dollar on record.
• Iranian forces unleashed drone and artillery attacks on the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, targeting what Tehran said were bases of militant Iranian Kurdish separatist groups.
• An unidentified gunman killed at least four adults and 11 children in a school shooting in Russia, according to federal investigators.

• A deal is being hammered out between the Biden administration and TikTok over whether the Chinese-owned app can continue operating in the U.S. In the U.K., the app may face a $29 million fine for failing to protect the privacy of children.
• Edward Snowden, the former U.S. intelligence contractor who disclosed mass surveillance techniques to news media in 2013, was granted Russian citizenship.
• More American transgender teenagers are choosing “top surgery.”

An unheralded national park in Thailand was the center of global attention when 12 boys were trapped in a cave there. In the wake of major movies about the rescue, the park expects a visitor surge.

ARTS AND IDEAS

The New India

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has become indispensable to some of the world’s most pressing challenges — diplomacy and climate change, technology and trade, and countering China with diversified supply chains.

The latest display of India’s power came this month when Modi told President Vladimir Putin of Russia that “today’s era is not of war,” before declaring that the two would speak more about how to bring peace in Ukraine.

On the global stage, Modi rides India’s credentials as the world’s largest democracy. But his government is undertaking a project to remake that democracy unlike any in India’s 75 years of independence: stifling dissent, sidelining civilian institutions and making minorities second-class citizens.

Modi has bent the courts, the news media, the legislature and civil society to his will, with the goal of imprinting a majoritarian Hindu ideology on India’s constitutionally secular democracy. He has received little pushback from Western allies; two years into the Biden administration, the U.S. still does not have an ambassador in New Delhi.

The question for India and the world is whether the country can remain an engine for growth and a viable partner even as it marginalizes minorities, particularly its 200 million Muslims, and stokes cycles of extremism and volatility at home.

For more on tests of democratic norms worldwide, see our Democracy Challenged coverage.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT

This slow cooker pumpkin-Parmesan polenta evokes pumpkin ravioli in porridge form.

Can brown noise turn off your brain?

Confronting sudden loss, Namwali Serpell wrote “The Furrows,” a disquieting novel about the mind, warped by grief.

Play the Mini Crossword, and a clue: “Watch your ___!”(four letters).

Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.

You can find all our puzzles here.

That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — Jonathan

P.S. The word “slowcitta” made its first appearance in The Times on Sunday in an article about travel in rural South Korea.

The latest episode of “The Daily” is on the decline in child poverty in the U.S.

Lauren Hard contributed to today’s newsletter. You can reach Jonathan and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

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